


forever missing him

by peredhils



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-25 02:53:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9799622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peredhils/pseuds/peredhils
Summary: “I would have searched the entire universe,” Shiro murmurs while biting down hard on the jut of Matt’s hip, “if it meant I’d find you.”—Shiro never gives up on finding Matt.  One day, he finds him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> im a huge SAP! shiro pining for matt is my weakness
> 
> now with wonderful, beautiful, amazing [art](http://amoxli.tumblr.com/post/161415246956/a-gift-for-leviackrmnn-whose-shatt-fic-made-me) by the super sweet [amoxli](http://amoxli.tumblr.com/) !!!
> 
> and another absolutely [incredible piece](http://amoxli.tumblr.com/post/163657552781/day-11-reunited-i-would-have-searched-the) by amoxli!!

With his hands on his shoulders and his lips inches from his face, Shiro whispers, “Take care of your father.” Strange hands are on him and ripping him away as blood drips from the sword. Matt looks up at him and Shiro’s heart thuds in his chest—this is it, this is it. He wishes he had more time to commit the crease between Matt’s eyebrow, the bow of his lips, the soft curve of his cheeks, to memory. It happens in less than an instant. Shiro is convinced time sped up the moment he pushed Matt aside, out of the Galra’s gaze. Matt is clutching his shin, and Shiro closes his eyes.

When he opens them, there is the Gladiator in front of him and the crowd screaming. There is pain, sadness, and a dull ache in his heart.

This is the last time he sees Matt for a long time.

 

The next time he sees Matt, Shiro’s a bit older, with grey in his hair and scars covering his body. It’s only in a picture but he cries all the same as if it were really him, flesh and blood before him. Pidge doesn’t ask why he’s crying. She hugs him and cries, too.

It’s hard for him to look at Pidge. When he sees her, laughing and _there_ , really there—he sees him. Matt’s face, contorted in pain and fear. His hands shake whenever she smiles because Matt, scared and alone on the floor, flashes through his memory and he has to be strong. He has to be strong for the team and he can’t—he can’t lose himself to his broken heart every time he remembers that Matt is still gone. And there’s a chance that they won’t get him back and every day they spend not having found him, the chasm in his heart expands because the chance that they _will_ grows ever smaller. One day it’s going to disappear.

Sometimes Pidge sits with him outside of the castle, and they watch the unfamiliar sun set low beneath the unexplored horizon. She doesn’t try to get him to look at her. They sit together in the quiet with the ghost of a loved one between them. He knows she wants to ask more, because it’s Pidge—of course she has a million and one questions queued up for him, but he appreciates that she stays patient. Shiro hopes that someday he’ll be able to talk about it, with ease and a fond smile and without heartache, but he knows that’s not how it works. Time may heal all wounds, like the scars he now has, but they still ache in the morning, or when it rains, or when the sun shines too brightly and he misses him like no other.

Despite Pidge being the only one who sort of knows what’s going on, the rest of the team can feel something deeply wrong and sad thrumming through their connection when they’re training, or mid fight. They know it comes from Shiro and mostly chalk it up to the after-effects of his imprisonment. But it doesn’t stop them from doing what they can for him, in the down times on the castle, or even in the midst of an all-out war. He’s thankful, for them. They make him feel like, despite how scared he is, he can do this. He can lead them through space, through this war. For them he pushes down those strangling feelings and keeps fighting. For them, and for _him_.

 

Often, he sees him in his dreams.

Sometimes he wakes up from them having screamed himself back to consciousness, his voice fighting to wrench him from having to replay that moment—that last, fleeting moment—over and over. It’s not always the same as it had really happened. In some dreams, Matt’s crying and reaching back for him, Shiro’s shirt ripping in Matt’s desperate hands. Or Matt stands up, ignoring his leg, and pulls Shiro in. And worst of all are the ones where he doesn’t offer himself up, he doesn’t push Matt behind him. He doesn’t protect him, and he watches Matt be thrown into the pit and the gladiator pulls each limb off agonizingly slow. When he wakes from those ones he presses his hand against his chest to feel his racing heart and he breathes deep into his pillow, trying to stifle his cries before the morning alarm for training sounds and he has to pretend his heart isn’t still pounding.

But, sometimes. Sometimes they aren’t blood soaked, aren’t hopeless. There are touches that never happened. Matt’s face lit by a setting sun. The breeze moves through Matt’s hair and Shiro feels younger, lighter, without a thousand years’ worth of scars. No war raging above them in the distant stars. Maybe they’re on earth or maybe they’re not. He doesn’t care.

Those he wakes from with the sheets bunched in his hands and his shirt damp with sweat. He drags himself out of bed, his fingers trailing along the mattress as he walks barefoot from his room into the dimly lit hallway. And he walks, and walks, and walks.

 

He doesn’t walk anywhere in particular, those nights. If his feet take him to the observation room, he’ll usually find it already occupied. Most times it’s Lance, sitting curled up under a blanket and staring out into the endless expanse. A few times it’s been both Lance and Keith, holding hands while he hears them talk of home in soft voices.

Pidge has been in there with her equipment and he resists the urge to join her. To crack open his heart, to tell her everything. He leaves her alone to the quiet beeping of her computers and scanners, praying one night he’ll catch her in there and she’ll turn to him and say, “I’ve found him.”

Once or twice he’s found Hunk writing in a journal everyone knows he has, but pretends he doesn’t. And very rarely has he seen Allura, with her hair down and the mice in her lap, probably thinking of a world long dead. Coran has been with her occasionally, the two of them just existing in the same space, knowing that they’re the only ones left.

Irrationally, he hopes to find Matt there. Hopes that maybe one night he’ll walk past the door and it’ll be Matt standing against the control board, leaning back with his arms crossed. It wouldn’t matter how he got there. Shiro imagines himself stopping in the doorway just to stare, his metal fingers denting the frame. In this downhearted fantasy Matt looks over his shoulder and says, “Isn’t it beautiful, Shiro?”

And Shiro would answer, with impossible effort, “Yes.”

 

Pidge sits down next to him to watch the sunset. She stays quiet for a few moments while the sun starts to dip low beneath the clouds, the bright colors of the alien sky blanketing the planet, the shadows deepening. But then, in a gentle voice, she says, “You should tell him.”

Shiro looks to her, the way the light bounces off her sad eyes. “If we find him, that is. You should tell him.”

Instead of watching the sunset, they just look to each other, and Shiro makes a promise to her, and himself. If they find him. If, if.

 

Then, one night.

“I’ve found him.”

 

It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but the way all their hearts pound recklessly in their chests as they lead their lions to the planet at the edge of the system. Shiro had hardly heard Pidge through the ringing in his ears when she explained how Matt must have somehow gotten to an escape pod and crash landed on an abandoned, lonely planet.

He’s never been so happy to hear such a broken voice. Matt says, “Katie, oh my god, Katie,” and Pidge runs to him. The team is screaming, shouting, holding each other close in shared relief while Pidge collapses against her brother in the dirt. “I’m so happy to see you,” Shiro hears him cry into Pidge’s ear while she tries to catch her breath.

Allura tells them over the comms to hurry and get back to the castle so Coran can run a medical exam on Matt. Shiro walks up behind them while Pidge clamors to her feet, wiping her eyes. Then, finally.

Looking down at him sprawled in the dirt bloodied and beaten, almost like the last time he had seen him, Shiro can’t stop the choked sob that spills from the bottom of his heart. Shit, he’s so happy to see him, really fucking see him. He leans down and reaches a hand out to him, his human hand—he wants to feel Matt’s warmth as his roughened hand grips his. Matt shakily stands to his feet, smiling at Shiro so softly that it nearly burns. He doesn’t know what to say. There are no words. Matt squeezes his hand as they stand staring at each other. It feels like it hasn’t hit him. It feels like this might not be real.

“I’d been hoping you’d find me,” Matt says. “Thank you.”

He can’t reply, because Allura is demanding they leave now before Matt passes out from exertion. Pidge drags Matt towards her lion and Shiro wrenches his eyes away, but the image of Matt glancing over his shoulder to look back at Shiro replays over and over in his head.

 

Allura and Coran give him, all things considered, a mostly clean bill of health. Aside from a slight limp, some crooked fingers, a rattle in his lungs from sickness, and many more scars—he’s fine. Physically, fine.

Over dinner—which was much better than the usual green ooze as Hunk had insisted on making something for the occasion—they tried to stay away from the heavier topics. But Pidge had asked in such a terribly hopeful voice, “What about dad?”

Matt clenches his hands in his lap, and for a moment it seems like he isn’t going to answer. After the whole table falls silent, Matt looks up to meet Pidge’s eyes. “I had to leave him behind, Katie. He’s still on the ship. He distracted the guards so I could escape.”

Shiro’s heart constricts in his chest as he watches Pidge take the information in, blinking back at her brother slowly. No one says anything while they return to their food until Lance cracks a joke about how Matt must be happy to be out of that unitard and it really shouldn’t be funny but once Keith lets out the first strangled laugh, they’re all laughing until it hurts and they aren’t sure why.

Shiro laughs and laughs until there’s tears, but they’re not from the joke. He catches Matt’s eyes across the table and none of his dreams could compare to Matt simply being there, just being there.

 

Shiro doesn’t know what to do. He wants to let his body take over and kiss Matt like he’s been waiting to, for years. Since before their mission to Kerberos. Since the first moment he met him. He wants to crowd Matt up against the wall of his room and make him feel all the lost days Shiro spent with a heart that beat half-dead as if in mourning. Another part wants to go slowly, take the time they never had and stretch it out as far into forever as he can. It’s hard though, because he’s still not sure if Matt feels the same. There was the moment after dinner where Matt whispered in his ear, _take me to your room_ , and he told himself not to be hopeful. But fuck if he couldn’t contain the buzzing under his skin. The eternal need to be closer. He stands with stiff limbs in front of the door to his room, staring at the slight bend to Matt’s back as Matt takes it all in.

There’s not much in there save for his bed and some clothes but Matt slides his eyes over every inch of the space. He turns to Shiro and Shiro still flinches because he’s scared that this might be a dream yet. It might be a nightmare and Matt might start screaming and crying blood and Shiro will never get to touch him. But Matt smiles softly, lightly, as he says, “I would dream about you.”

He thinks maybe their dream selves were reaching out across space for each other. He wonders if they had the same dreams. “You look different now, though,” Matt continues. “More muscle,” he says with a laugh and Shiro’s heart. Oh god, his fucking heart. That smile—it makes him think of when they were younger, forever ago. Back when they both looked different, breathed easier—but Shiro’s heart still beat the same as it does now—for him, for him. Matt wasn’t as tall, Shiro not as rough around every edge. Less sadness. More late nights at the Garrison, sneaking on top of the buildings to watch the stars they’d soon be flying past. How Shiro would want to kiss him, in the cold of the desert nights. How he never did.

Not wanting to get ahead of himself, he again tries not to be hopeful. But Matt’s looking at him with a smile he never thought he’d see anymore and a laugh he only heard in memory. Matt would dream about him. He dreamt about him. He holds onto that.

“Do you remember anything?”

There’s a look on Matt’s face that Shiro almost doesn’t understand. He’s looking up at him from a downturned angle, something unspoken resting in his question.

“I remember the gladiator. I remember escaping,” he says, trying to find what Matt’s looking for.

“Is that all?”

“I remember the last time I saw you.”

Matt breathes out with a sad smile. “Me, too.” They’re tiptoeing around each other, Shiro can tell, but he’s not sure what exactly they’re avoiding. Of course, he knows that he’s trying to hold in a backlog of emotions that dates back years, and he can only hope that maybe Matt’s doing the same.

He continues to talk, telling Shiro about his time in the prison. About how he was sick for most of it, and how his dad took care of him. Shiro listens. He can’t believe he’s there—it’s been so long, and he hadn’t once given up hope but he’d never been able to stop the thoughts of what if, what if he never sees him again. But there he is. Shiro watches the way Matt’s mouth moves, the way his hair falls past his ears; notes everything about him that he missed and couldn’t commit to memory before. He wants, hopelessly, to map everything with his kisses so he could never forget it.

How does he tell him? Does he just say it? Say, _I love you and it’s always been like this_ , or _I’m sorry I couldn’t save you sooner_? Maybe he’ll grab his hand and press it to his chest so Matt can feel his broken, pounding heart.

Matt says, “And you were always what got me through.”

Upon hearing that, feeling like he’d been frozen in place, Shiro moves with unsure step closer to Matt. Ignoring any semblance of beating around the bush, he mostly whispers, “Listen, I don’t know how to tell you—"

And then. Then Matt’s lips are on his. Matt’s hands are cupping his cheeks, pressing against the back of his neck. Matt’s mouth is heavy against his own. Shiro’s shocked beyond action, beyond words. He had always imagined what it would be like to be with him like this. “I’ve missed you, Shiro,” Matt says breathlessly. It comes out as a worn confession, desperately exhaled against Shiro’s mouth.

Matt moves his hand to press hard against Shiro’s chest, to feel his erratic heartbeat and Shiro feels as if he’s not really there in his body—his vision tunnels and all he sees are Matt’s eyes, staring intently into his own. “When I was on the ship,” he continues, while tightening his grip on Shiro’s shirt, “I thought I was going to die there. And one of my biggest regrets was that I’d never get to tell you how I—how I felt.” As he spoke his hand had begun to shake until the rest of his body was too, and Shiro wraps his arms around Matt and holds him close. “You got me through. I couldn’t die until I told you how I felt.”

He shakes and shakes.

“Shiro, I was so scared—"

Before his voice can waver any more, before they both start to cry, Shiro dips down and swallows the rest of whatever he was going to say. He moves with the urgency of a long lost lover, of a broken man. As he feels himself return to his body, desperation courses through him from his fingertips to his toes. Matt’s making small sounds as Shiro tightens his arms, pressing the palms of his hands against Matt’s back to get him as close as he can.

Matt parts his lips and Shiro has thought of this moment, this hopeless moment, for years. The taste of him on Shiro’s tongue is enough to wash away his nightmares. Matt writhes in his arms and the sound of them, licking into each other drives heat through Shiro’s body.

Without breaking away, Shiro grabs Matt’s legs and lifts them up. Matt takes the hint and hooks them around Shiro’s back and lets himself be kissed the entire way to the bed. The hard line of his cock rests against Matt’s ass and he nearly thrusts upwards then and there. Shiro half trips when he makes it to the edge of the mattress and they fall together, scrambling to keep touching. Shiro doesn’t stop kissing him.

The moans that are coming from the back of Matt’s throat sound like the only thing Shiro wants to hear for the rest of his life. He’s sluggish with something that can’t be explained, something he doesn’t understand. He loves Matt, he loves him. He’s loved him for years, through their imprisonment, through wars, through uncertainty. And he has him back, good god, he has him back.

He doesn’t plan to let go.

And with that, something breaks. There’s no holding back any longer—he’s surprised that he made it this far: through rescuing him, through dinner, through anything really. Shiro fists Matt’s shirt in his hands and _pulls _, ripping it down the front as he kisses almost harshly, biting at Matt’s lower lip just to hear him whine. Matt sits up so Shiro can tear the rest of his shirt away and throw it someone far across the room. Seeing Matt, flushed and panting below him has Shiro shaking as he lets his hands run down Matt’s chest, lets his mouth follow their trail. He kisses all the skin he can while Matt takes trembling breaths above him.__

__He moves further down the bed even though it pains him to be doing anything but kissing Matt senseless. There’s years of longing begging to be heard. While he bites down his chest, he tells Matt, “You kept me going—“ he reaches up to cup his cheek and rub his thumb across the space under his eye—“All this time. The thought of finding you got me out of bed in the mornings.”_ _

__Matt’s breath comes out even more ragged the more Shiro talks. “I would have searched the entire universe,” he murmurs while biting down hard on the jut of Matt’s hip, “if it meant I’d find you.” Matt keens, twisting off the bed, mouth hanging open while he locks eyes with Shiro._ _

__Shiro only hesitates for a brief, heavy beat as he’s caught by the look in Matt’s eyes. It’s a short, quiet moment but he tucks it away in his mind so he can remember it, always. He pulls Matt’s pants down, underwear too, and throws them to join the ruined shirt._ _

__“Fuck, you’re beautiful.” He wants to take him into his mouth, to fuck him until he screams himself hoarse, and he doesn’t want to wait. But, he reminds himself, they have time. Matt’s back, and they have time. So Shiro lowers himself until he’s at Matt’s ankles, and he starts there._ _

__Slowly, he kisses where ankle meets leg and travels upwards. He closes his eyes and mouths desperately against his flesh, letting Matt’s endless gasps fill his ears. All the touches he never was able to give him—he plans on giving them all, right now, right here in this bed._ _

__Once he gets near his knee, Shiro stops dead in his tracks. The indent of Matt’s deep scar runs wide and far on Matt’s leg and Shiro can’t—can’t really breathe. His fingers twitch and he can almost feel the blade connect with Matt’s skin, hear the way he screamed—_ _

__“Don’t,” Matt says. Shiro looks up at him, startled and nearly too drowned with memory to see straight. “It means you saved me.” He runs his hand through Shiro’s hair and suddenly, suddenly. He’s not lost._ _

__His kisses turn from slow to frantic so he can reach the soft inside of Matt’s thighs. When they were younger, Shiro had always wondered what sort of sounds Matt would make if Shiro were to suck hard on the most sensitive parts of him, and now he knows. He knows that when he licks lightly after biting down, Matt gasps and laughs incredulously. When he runs his tongue from the base to head of his cock, Matt moans his name low and drawn out like it’s being pulled from his throat._ _

__Surprisingly, Matt tugs on his hair before he can go any further. “Stop, I can’t wait any longer, I—“_ _

__“Please,” Shiro whispers, “let me touch you. I need to feel all of you.” He hopes that Matt understands. Pressing Matt back down onto the bed, he leans down, kissing and sucking his balls and letting every moan wash over him._ _

__He doesn’t stop there, traveling lower until he reaches the soft ring of muscle. Gently, he licks around it, hardly pressing against it at all, but if the way Matt was clenching, all of his body twitching, he was doing something right. He lifts Matt’s legs until they’re over his shoulder and he goes back to working his tongue inside._ _

__The moment he first slips into him, he can feel the sweat start on Matt’s palms from where their hands are intertwined. “Oh god, Shiro—please,” are some of the things falling from Matt’s lax mouth, and Shiro could never deny him anything._ _

__He presses inside, reaching further with his tongue and, taking his hand from Matt’s, works a finger in as well. It’s—it’s so fucking hot, both inside of him and to hear the way Matt is breaking apart above him. Once he gets two fingers in him, once he’s twisting and curling them, stroking Matt’s walls, Shiro lifts his head up and lets Matt’s legs fall off of him._ _

__Never once stopping the thrusting of his fingers, he bends down and takes Matt’s hard, leaking cock into his mouth._ _

__Matt’s hips jerk off the bed and he hits the back of Shiro’s throat, but Shiro just swallows around him, humming over his cock while he fingers him. He's not sure if he'd think this if it was anyone but Matt, but the taste of Matt—his cock, his pre-come—is unlike anything Shiro’s ever experienced. Maybe it's how long he's wanted this, to have matt pushing up without abandon into his mouth while he moans and cries Shiro’s name on repeat. Maybe it's how in love with him he is. He can't get enough of him._ _

__It doesn’t register that maybe Matt should be quieter. The rest of the castle might be able to hear the way Matt’s panting, begging for Shiro to fuck him with his mouth, to press against that spot, again, _again, again_. But Shiro doesn’t care. He’d been waiting years to hear the way Matt sounded when he was knuckles deep inside him, and he doesn’t care if they were loud enough to wake half the beings on this side of the galaxy. All he wants is for Matt to keep talking, to keep begging for him. _ _

__“Shiro, I’m going to—“_ _

__“Then come,” Shiro says, sliding back down on Matt’s dick, curling his fingers deep and hard against that spot inside him. “Come for me.”_ _

__It takes a few more moments of Shiro tightening his lips around Matt’s cock while he bobs his head up and down for Matt to come with a scream that seems like it had been held in for ages. Shiro takes it all, swallowing all of Matt’s come while he kneads his hand into Matt’s side._ _

__Although Matt’s trying to catch his breath, he sits up and reaches towards Shiro. “Take this off,” he says, gripping the hem of Shiro’s shirt. Once his shirt is long gone, Matt hooks his hands into the top of his pants. “These, too.”_ _

__Without looking away from Matt’s eyes, Shiro pulls his underwear and pants down slowly. He watches the way Matt takes all of him in, something so tender in the way he looks him up and down._ _

__“Fuck me,” Matt says. “I need you inside me—been wanting this for so long.” He grabs Shiro’s face and pulls him up and kisses him, probably tasting himself on his tongue but Matt only moans into him, endlessly._ _

_Please_ , Shiro thinks, _don't let this be a dream._

__Everything else becomes meaningless. Anything that isn’t Shiro reaching into his small dresser beside his bed, anything that’s not Matt’s lips moving lightly over every inch of his face—it all fades away. Shiro reaches for him like he’s starved, lining himself up and entangling the fingers of his other hand with Matt’s._ _

__He looks to Matt for a moment, their eyes meeting for a few quiet heartbeats. Shiro asks, “Is this okay?” and Matt smiles, scoffing while he flops his head down and rolls his eyes._ _

__“Nothing would be better, actually.” He curls his other hand around Shiro’s upper arm, squeezing lightly. “Please.” It’s hardly even a whisper._ _

__With reverence Shiro thought only to be spoken of in things like love stories, Shiro inches inside gently, the feeling of Matt opening up around him nearly sending him through the ceiling. Every noise that Matt makes causes Shiro to fall in love over and over. He wants to find out every way that he can make Matt moan his name. He wants everything, absolutely everything._ _

__Once they move together, he can hardly imagine stopping._ _

__Matt urges him on, wrapping his legs behind Shiro’s back and pressing his feet against him, pushing him in further with each thrust. The bed creaks and nearly slams against the wall every time Shiro snaps his hips forward, but neither of them notice and wouldn’t care if they did. Nothing else matters but the way Shiro’s cock fucks up into Matt, the way Matt gasps and begs for more._ _

__The way Matt looks at him._ _

__For the most part, Shiro has been keeping his other arm—his galra arm—out of the way, not wanting to touch Matt in the most intimate ways with something so vile, so dirty with their past trauma. But Matt notices Shiro struggle to adjust while keeping his arm away, and Matt reaches out. He grabs Shiro’s arm and holds his hand delicately near his face and kisses the palm, eyes closed tightly while Shiro thrusts into him. Shiro stutters, losing his rhythm as he watches Matt place more small kisses on his palm then guide his hand to cup his face, turning to open his eyes and give Shiro this knowing stare. This loving, understanding, accepting stare. It makes Shiro feel fit to burst, and he can’t stop himself any longer._ _

__The first unrestricted sob comes, and more follow. Matt reaches up and wraps his arms around Shiro’s neck, holding him flush against his body while Shiro cries freely and cathartically into the crook of his neck. Shiro can feel Matt’s chest rising and falling in erratic patterns below his own, and he knows that Matt is crying too. It’s the shedding of suffering. Eternities of longing and pain are being overshadowed by the way it feels to finally be together. Shiro keeps moving slowly inside him, feeling overwhelmed with how much he fucking loves Matt, how good it feels to have Matt look their past in the face and still kiss any part of him, no matter the memories. He pulls back to rest his forehead against Matt’s._ _

__“I love you,” Matt gently admits. “I love you, Shiro.”_ _

__He realizes—that’s the first time they’ve said it out loud. There had been times, throughout all their past days together, where he’d wanted to say it. During sunsets, during missions, during fucking exams at the Garrison. If he could have, he would have screamed it then. And knowing now that Matt had wanted to say it too, had loved him back, is one of the best feelings in the world._ _

__Shiro laughs, leaning forward to kiss Matt’s tear stained cheek. “Matt, I’ve loved you since the start.”_ _

__There’s a moment where they don’t move. It’s just them, breathing into each other, soaking in the things they’ve said. Then Shiro is moving again, thrusting back into him recklessly, chasing both of their releases with wild need._ _

__Shiro’s spine arches as he comes, pushing as deeply inside Matt as he can, feeling the way Matt’s muscles twitch desperately around him as he rides out his own release again._ _

__All he wants for the rest of his days is to tell Matt he loves him, and to hear him scream it back. He wants it all—Matt’s come, his cries, his tears, his laughter, his kisses, his beautiful, beautiful smile._ _

__So he takes and takes and takes._ _

__

__He’s not in the pilot’s seat. Shiro’s not there. They all stand in silence, despondent. The sound the metal of the pilot’s seat makes while Allura clenches it in her hands is all there is. Their breathing, their heartbeats—it’s all quiet._ _

__But Matt’s thoughts are loud._ _

__God, he’s afraid. It seems like he’s back in the galra prison, like he’s seeing Shiro being ripped away from him all over again. Back then he knew, even though Shiro had escaped the ship and there was never a promise made, he knew Shiro would find him. No matter how sick he was, or how scared, or however many times the soldiers made him scream Shiro’s name and told him no one would ever save him, he knew. Shiro would always find him. He had been right about that._ _

__And now, Shiro needed to be found. There was no trace of him at all in the lion, no indication of where he may have gone. It didn’t matter. Just as it didn’t for Shiro, it didn’t matter for Matt. Even if Shiro was in another world, another universe, another time. Matt would find him._ _

__It was his turn, this time. If this was how they were going to be, endlessly searching for each other, reaching across any impossible distance, then so be it. As long as they found each other, again and again, that would be enough._ _

**Author's Note:**

> shatt invented love? i can't believe it either. title from youth by daughter. hmu on [tumblr](http://leviackrmnn.tumblr.com) let's talk about shatt


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